The Romantic film-philosophy of Cavell, Mulhall, Sinnerbrink, and Smith completes the triangulation of values among the ethical, cognitive, and aesthetic: in the same way that film links Smith’s innovations in the disciplines of aesthetics, philosophy, and culture, authenticity links the ethical, cognitive, and aesthetic values of film.

King Laius died at the Cleft Way, where he got in the way of an emigrant to Thebes who happened also to be his son. The prophecy was that Oedipus would be the death of Laius, and it was in the name of avoiding this fate that father and son worked together to seal it. Yet what truly made Oedipus Continue Reading …

What are science, religion, and secularism? How have they interacted, historically, and what are the major issues in contemporary reflection on them? A new series explores these questions through the works of the scientists, theologians, and philosophers who have shaped the dialogue over the last century and a half.

Scalar consequentialism is an ethical theory that has us always choose the better option. That’s very much the way that today’s computer chess programs play. There’s a lot to learn from the study of their games against human chess players who use a different approach.

“Tradition must be defended,” says the political conservative, “it is the source of our highest and truest values.” Many traditional beliefs and practices may indeed have much to recommend them, but they also have a dark side.

What would it be like to live forever? The question has been addressed in dramatic form both in Karel Capek’s play The Makropulos Affair and in the movie Logan. The eminent philosopher Bernard Williams wrote an article about Elina Makropulos, who’s become bored with it all. How is Logan different?

Heidegger’s conception of authenticity, is both appealing (in that it accords due significance to mortality) and troubling (in completely prioritising the self over others). The core concept can be retained while introducing an other-regarding elementcourtesy of Simone de Beauvoir’s early work on ethics. Fanon’s commentary on authenticity from Black Skin, White Masks develops the links between Heidegger and Beauvoir.

Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote, “Speak what you think now in hard words and to-morrow speak what to-morrow thinks in hard words again, though it contradict every thing you said to-day.” Does that mean the current POTUS is an Emersonian? Not quite!

In The Birth of Tragedy, Friedrich Nietzsche argues that, through his protégé Euripides, Socrates had injected into Greek tragedy the seed of questioning doubt that brought an end to the religious animus of drama, the fire that fueled its creation and sustained it. Thus, cold reason killed tragedy. Although he would later modify this view, it remains a powerful and influential polemic in the history of aesthetics.

In 1996, Samuel Huntington presented a theory of “clashes” occurring between different civilizational blocks. Huntington traced the mindsets of different people to solid religious sources. However, what if the difference between civilizational blocks is that some have read Nietzsche and others haven’t?

Some straightforward steps to take to not just help you grasp a fact or issue, but also arm you to survive—even thrive—in an era of limitless data, and limitless people who want to tell you how to interpret it.

About The Partially Examined Life

The Partially Examined Life is a philosophy podcast by some guys who were at one point set on doing philosophy for a living but then thought better of it. Each episode, we pick a text and chat about it with some balance between insight and flippancy. You don’t have to know any philosophy, or even to have read the text we’re talking about to (mostly) follow and (hopefully) enjoy the discussion

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